Goodale or bust!

With this blog post the Dispatch librarians welcome our summer library intern,
Corinne Smith. Corinne will be working with us here in the library - and
writing blog posts for your reading enjoyment. I'd say she's off to a smashing start this
post on Goodale Park. We're glad she's here. Enjoy!

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In this photo published in The Dispatch in the summer of 1982, the bust of Dr. Lincoln Goodale,
Goodale Park’s namesake, gets a ride on the back of a pickup truck driven by a Columbus Parks
Department employee. The bust was on its way to be re-cemented back on its pedestal after being
knocked down by vandals the previous winter.

Today, Goodale’s bust is back in place and when he’s not adorned with a tie-dyed shirt in
honor of Comfest, he stoically welcomes visitors to the metropolitan oasis he preserved over 150
years ago. The bust was sculpted by the well-known Ohio sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward and was
erected in 1888 at one of the park’s main entrances.

In 1851, Dr. Lincoln Goodale sold the 40 acres of land to the City of Columbus for only
$1.00.

The catch?

Goodale insisted the land forever be kept and preserved as a public park for free use by
Columbus inhabitants – or else the land would revert back to the ownership of Goodale’s
heirs. With a good balance of natural landscape and man-made structures, the park became a
model for many other urban retreats including New York City’s Central Park.